Front Text: Seven-year-old Jonathan Alder was captured by a Native American war party in Virginia in 1782 and taken to a Mingo village north of the Mad River in Ohio where he was adopted by an Indian family. He remained with the Indians until after the 1795 Treaty of Greenville ended the Indian Wars in the Ohio Country. As white settlers entered the region, Alder frequently served as an interpreter. In 1805, he journeyed to Virginia and was reunited with his original family. He returned to Ohio with his new wife, Mary Blont, and built a cabin on Big Darby Creek. His cabin is now at the Madison County Historical Society Museum in London. Alder is buried in Foster Chapel Cemetery. Back Text: Same

Front Text: On September 8, 1803, the year that Ohio became a state, the Associate Judges of Franklin County ordered that a road be constructed "leading from the Public Square in Franklinton to Springfield, Greene County." This road came to be known as The Old State Road or Ludlow's Road. On this spot in the summer of 1822, the Village of New Hampton was laid out, the road being Main Street of the village. New Hampton was the forerunner of West Jefferson. It fell into oblivion eight to nine years later when West Jefferson was developed along the National Road. All that remains of New Hampton is the cemetery and this part of the road. Back Text: Same

Front Text: The W. Pearl King Prairie Savanna is a mostly undisturbed remnant of the once expansive Darby Plains Prairies. Prior to European settlement more than two centuries ago, the Darby Plains covered an area of more than 380 square miles west of Columbus. These prairies were an eastward extension of the Great Plains Prairie that Ohio State Professor Edgar Transeau termed the Prairie Peninsula in 1935. The W. Pearl King Prairie Savanna is a 20-acre vestige of a once large and varied habitat of native tallgrass prairie and oak groves. The prairie contains bur oaks, one of Ohio’s largest stands of prairie dropseed grass, and several other native prairie plants. Named for a former landowner, William Pearl King (1891-1960), the site has been owned and managed by Columbus and Franklin County Metro Parks since 2006. Back Text: Same

Address: Intersection of David Brown Road and Mechanicsburg-Sanford Road, MechanicsburgLocation: SW corner of the intersection